While institutions account for only a little more than 3% of food expenditures, these market channels provide some of the clearest insight available on regional sourcing progress and potential. While the purchasing power of institutional markets is significantly smaller than grocery stores and restaurants, 1 in every 4 New Englanders spend some part of every day in an institution. School meals are especially important to children from low-income families for whom these meals provide a significant amount of daily nutrition. In some institutional settings (e.g., prisons), consumers are entirely reliant on the food provided for extended periods of time with no choice in what is offered.
Number of Institutions in New England
USDA Child Nutrition Data by State, 2019
Top 20 Local Items Purchased in School Nutrition Programs, 2019
Note About Connecticut Maps: Although Connecticut has not had county governments since 1960, county boundaries have historically been used to depict data. For example, all USDA Census of Agriculture data for Connecticut is collected at a county-level. In 2022, the U.S. Census Bureau shifted to using Connecticut's nine planning regions as county equivalent geographic units for data collection. This has presented a challenge for depicting data for Connecticut's planning regions in Tableau. This mapping challenge has not been resolved yet, but when a solution is available, we will update Connecticut maps.
